ANALYZING THE SUPPLIER SELECTION PROCESS OF A LEAN MANUFACTURING FIRM: A CASE STUDY

Suppliers play an important role in a supply chain and therefore decision of supplier selection is also important. Supplier selection is a widely studied subject in the literature. This study addressed the supplier selection issue of a lean manufacturing firm with the aim of finding the relative importance of the supplier selection criteria. To this end, a furniture manufacturing firm which applies lean production was chosen and its supplier selection process was analyzed. The fuzzy AHP method was used to determine the ranking of the supplier selection criteria. It was found that delivery performance was ranked as the first criterion among the seven criteria and it was followed by quality, cost / price, reliability, flexibility, geographical location and technological capability. Finally, limitations of the study and areas of future research were discussed.